


Kiss Chase

by fengirl88



Series: Kiss Chase [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Kissbingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-30
Updated: 2010-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his dreams he runs after Sherlock, catches him and kisses him...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Chase

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after the end of The Great Game. Spoilers for that and for A Study in Pink.
> 
> Written for the "type: emoticon" square on my kissbingo card.
> 
> NB: contains angst.
> 
> Thanks again to blooms84 for invaluable late-night conversation.

_In his dreams he runs after Sherlock, catches him and kisses him..._

They played Kiss Chase at John's primary school. Didn't play it at Sherlock's prep school, obviously. That sort of game has a whole different meaning in a single-sex educational establishment, and there would have been – to say the least – concerned and angry parents taking their sons away in droves.

John was never particularly keen on it, though he usually liked games that involved running. Chasing. Still does, or did. He'd liked chasing that taxi around London with Sherlock, liked that a lot, even if it _was_ the most ridiculous thing he'd ever done. It was exhilarating, being high on adrenalin and risk and craziness again. Leaping across the gap between rooftops, sheer bloody madness, but worth the danger, no, the danger was the _point_. The danger and the chase.

The problem with Kiss Chase was what happened when you caught a girl because you'd run fast enough. Never had to worry about being caught, because none of the girls could run as fast as him. But you were supposed to want to catch them and kiss them, while they shrieked their disgust, because everyone knew kissing was sexy which meant dirty which meant bad. A girl at their school once called Harry _you sexy bugger_ because Harry had said she was going to do a man's job when she grew up, just to show she could. Only the strong taboo against boys hitting girls had prevented John from flattening her for that insult, the worst they knew at eight years old.

He'd never felt comfortable, catching and kissing the girls, but he did what you're supposed to do, the way he went on doing for years. Went on doing till he met Sherlock and suddenly all the rules went flying through the air like a scattered pack of cards. He'd gone through the looking-glass and nothing made sense the way it used to. Whichever path he took brought him back to the same place: the madhouse that was 221b Baker Street and the self-styled high-functioning sociopath who could have him rushing across London at a moment's notice for no good reason.

When he'd kissed Sherlock, in the rubble of the swimming-pool, he hadn't known if either of them would survive. All he knew was that he couldn't die, couldn't let Sherlock die, without telling him, and there were no words left, they'd all been blown up when the bomb went off. The kiss tasted of blood and dust and chlorine; he couldn't taste anything else properly for days.

 

Back home in Baker Street, bodily injuries mending, they move around each other carefully, don't ask, don't tell. Don't ask about the latest nightmare or the shadows under his eyes or whether he remembers what happened in those last moments before the ambulance arrived. Don't tell him what you wanted to say right at that moment because those words are still buried in the rubble.

The pink phone sits on the coffee-table where Sherlock left it that night. They never mention it or move it. There's no way of telling whether the body at the swimming-pool was Moriarty's. If that even _was_ Moriarty.

The voices echo in his head:

 _I will burn the heart out of you.  
I have been reliably informed that I don't have one.  
But we both know that's not quite true._

He thinks he knows what Moriarty meant, but it's safer not to find out. He seems to mind about safety now, in a way he used not to.

In his dreams he runs after Sherlock, through the alleys and back-doubles of London, catches him and kisses him, but the dream changes with the kiss, and they're back at the pool, with the snipers' red dots dancing over their bodies again.

Till the day the pink phone goes off. No pips this time, just a text:

HELLO SEXY  
DID YOU MISS ME  
:*

“Why the colon and the asterisk?” Sherlock says.

“Emoticon,” John says. “It's a kiss.”

His stomach churns and he feels suddenly faint, as if he's back at the pool, knees giving way under him as he watches Sherlock pacing and shaking with John's gun in his hand.

They don't have the gun any more, but he wishes they did.

The game is on again, and this time he _really_ doesn't want to play.


End file.
